In Santee, California, my brother went to Vons to pick up some groceries. And guess what, ladies push their carts but they aren’t looking for cereal, they’re staring at my brother. The workers aren’t cleaning up the mess on aisle 5, he’s staring at my brother while another young lady slips on the mess because her attention was drawn to a yellow skinned gentlemen trying to be as quick as possible to get his milk, get his ham, pay the dollar and get out of there!

Naw, it’s not that bad.

But let’s face it, us asians (Taiwanese at least) are racist against ourselves.

I was working in a grocery store one day and a Taiwanese lady came in with an American girl. They went around the store and the Taiwanese lady spoke pretty good english and introduced the other girl to the store. I was standing at the cash register when they came with their basket full of stuff to buy. The first impression was of slight arrogance on the part pf the Taiwanese lady. I don’t really know how she did it, but when she spoke in chinese it was as if I didn’t know a word of the language and she had to speak as if I was a total foreigner.

They left and I had a firecracker about to go off in my head. Then it did and everything was all right afterwards.

Being someone who only speaks chinese 5% of my day, my word power and diction cannot compare to the chinese the commonfolk speak out in the city. When I go to a store or a market, I speak no more than five words and the clerks look at me and say… “You’re an American Born Chinese aren’t you?” I have a pathetic look then a smile and nod at them, trying to indicate they need not rub it in.

Then again, when I am confident my chinese is pretty efficient. Once I become nervous and my security goes, my accent and my diction turn into something from another dimension. It’s truly intriguiging.

There is, however, a weakness in the culture of Taiwanese language. They only know Taiwanese and Chinese and if it’s the 6% of the Taiwanese population maybe Hakka (Hakka Pride! Ang Kiang!).

English? I looked at the TOEFL and TOEIC guide books and I laughed out loud. This test is nothing less than a watered down elementary school version of the SAT. You go up to a random Taiwanese and talk to him in english, they will not know what to talk to you because all they know is singular vocabulary words. They’d perhaps know some McDonalds english, perhaps some Starbucks english, but all in all you’ll probably get a “Tia Bo (Don’t understand in taiwanese” for an answer.

Geez, no matter how many cram schools are dedicated to teaching english, if the family doesn’t speak it, a child’s never going to learn it. No wonder the accents used in movies and tv shows pour salt on the already painful wound. ‘Cause it’s freaking true!

I want to be one of the few that changes that stereotype. Taiwanese isn’t Math and Science, though Asian Joe bloggs won’t stop studying them. Taiwanese is just as human and structured as American. Taiwanese people buy houses, they invest in stocks, they have children…. and unfortunately, the men aren’t man enough to take up the challenge of manhood. What don’t you see in Taiwan that is in America? I must say very little.

Quote from last year’s personal journal: “The PSAT took a gun and shot me in the nose today.” “I’m not sure what to make of the SAT today, I’m pretty stressed out… I think I’m going to lay down and die.”

When I filled in that last bubble, wings grew out of my back. The final SAT has been completed and I no longer need to worry. Needless to say, I’m getting into college.

For my Bible class in school called “Men of Honor” we talked about men who tolerate bad things including the things in their own life, and those who hold onto their integrity. I was assigned to write about men in the Bible who were either passive or non-passive.

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Although King Solomon is said to be the wisest man alive, his dark side is often looked over. Being the father of the Proverbs and showing awesome wisdom from God, Solomon’s outcome of becoming a husband to many foreign wives (as it says in 1 Kings 11) and building an alter to each wife’s god, God has drawn himself short in his protection of Jerusalem. Yet even after God’s departure, Solomon was wicked and passive about his sins even till his death. His action recorded in 1 Kings right before his death was his attempt to kill the very one who tried to set him straight.

It is said that the rich young man (Mark 10:17-23), whom Jesus commanded to give up all his possessions and follow him, was Mark himself. Mark is believed to have great wealth and eventually gave up all he had and followed Paul in a few of his journeys to minister to the cities around the Mediterranean Sea. It took guts for Mark to give up all he had. The lofty life as a rich person was comfortable, yet it was passive, and it gave Mark a feeling that he did not have obligations to the matters of the world. But when Jesus looked at him straight in the eye with a face that could only say “I love you,” Mark realized the magnitude of the matters of the world and that it was foolish of him not to walk in Jesus’ ways.

As men we have the obligation to act justly, looking into our lives and actively listening to the Holy Spirit for any reports of errors within the functions of our soul. True activeness and sensitivity concerning people around us must be the byproduct of our own sensitivity to ourselves and what we do. Jesus spoke about this in his message on judging. King Solomon was very wise, but with such knowledge he could also dismiss himself and fall into terrible cycles of sin. In his arrogance and haughtiness, still holding onto his status as the wisest man on earth, he went right on indulging himself. That’s the highest disappointment to God; when a man knows the truth and yet does not go by the truth and excuses himself to sinning because of his past achievements with truth. Mark, on the other hand, listened to the Holy Spirit within Jesus and thought hard about his choices in life. His sublime lifestyle kept him from understanding the truth, but when he discovered it, his life changed from that point on.

We are men who need to follow that path. Jesus wants us to surrender all of us to him and listen to his spirit guiding us. The Holy Spirit is the key to activeness in fine-tuning our hearts. Without him our passive nature will inevitably rise up and overtake us just like it did with Solomon.

First off… I got my ARC and I am overjoyed! this nightmare has finally ended and I can stay another year in taiwan without getting booted out of the country.

This little experience has taught me so much about responsibility and how nasty things can get. Man, adulthood is tough, man, it ain’t easy taking care of bills and entering information and updating things and when you end up forgetting about it you spend six months trying to fix everything.

I can’t believe that’s going to be me in a year.

Really, as time passes, how is it that I will remember my school and all the things that occured in it? I still remember the past where I came out as this awkward little chubby kid trying to make friends with people who look at me and go “wha?”

And now it seems like the devastation has ended and I can be normal again, although there are times when a beast is unleashed within me and I do the most spontaneous things. I have taken the joking words of my brother way too seriously.

I could just see myself in a year at the first day of college trying to be as cool as I can and then accidentally stepping on gum and tripping over some girl with a ton of books in the hallway. There’s my first friend.

There’s something about senioritis that’s so strange. As of right now I understand that senioritis is when you’re so sick on school that you drop your books and go on strike. You procrastinate and you rebel that school HAS to go on.

I guess the main things is that you’re so excited about the future that it’s killing you and that’s exactly how I feel as I think about it and type about it and ponder about all the possibilities of the future and…

This last weekend I spent with my grandma… She spoke at a summer get together and I escorted her to her destination… It was exhausting. The high speed rail, which used to be my favorite form of transportation, cancelled the train in which we were to take due to some malfunction. So we waited two hours for a seat and so on and so forth… it was just a terrible time for me because I was so tired after this… But I know that my grandma is safe and that’s all that really matters…

This is the theme of my year… it’s a poem anonymously written… strange that someone would remain anonymous after writing such a beautiful poem. Think about what it means when you read it… it meant a lot to me.